Annual lockdowns part of the drill in NSW schools

Dijana Damjanovic

CHILDREN as young as four practise lockdown drills in schools across NSW.

The Department of Education introduced the drills for kindergarten to year 12 about a decade ago to ensure safety in the face of threats on school grounds and in the surrounding area.

The drills are held at least once a year and police are informed before the exercise ''so that members of the public do not become alarmed,'' said a department spokesman.

Parents are usually only informed when an actual emergency response has occurred.

He said a lockout involved locking the external entries to a school and was used when the potential threat, such as an escaped prisoner, was off the school grounds but still in the surrounding area. A lockdown was ''a more intensive version of a lockout, where there may be a possibility that an unauthorised person is inside the school grounds''.

During lockdowns, teachers or students lock all doors and windows and remain in the classroom until further notice. In some circumstances, the drill may involve students moving into a corner of a room or crouching under desks. The spokesman said ''specific details of a school lockout or lockdown procedure are determined by the school in conjunction with the local police''.

Factors influencing the way a school carries out its drill include the size and location of the school.

The spokesman said ''schools have these measures in place because we have a duty of care to students and staff''.